Page:The Indian Drum (1917 original).pdf/375

Rh not known more than that of where she was. She had broken her new shaft, Father, and was intact except for that, but helpless in the rising sea. ..

The priest broke off. "The Miwaka! I did not understand all that that had meant to him until just now—the new ship of the rival line, whose building meant for him failure and defeat!

"There is no higher duty than the rescue of those in peril at sea. He—Benjamin Corvet, who told me this—swore to me that, at the beginning none upon the tug had any thought except to give aid. A small line was drifted down to the tug and to this a hawser was attached which they hauled aboard. There happened then the first of those events which led those upon the tug into doing a great wrong. He—Benjamin Corvet—had taken charge of the wheel of the tug; three men were handling the hawser in ice and washing water at the stern. The whistle accidentally blew, which those on the Miwaka understood to mean that the hawser had been secured, so they drew in the slack; the hawser, tightened unexpectedly by the pitching of the sea, caught and crushed the captain and deckhand of the tug and threw them into the sea.

"Because they were short-handed now upon the tug, and also because consultation was necessary over what was to be done, the young owner of the Miwaka, Captain Stafford, came down the hawser onto the tug after the line had been put straight. He came to the wheelhouse, where Benjamin Corvet was, and they consulted. Then Benjamin Corvet learned that the other owner was aboard the new ship as well—Ramsdell—the man whose money you have just told me had built this and was soon to build other ships. I did not un-